A 210-GHz SiGe Balanced Amplifier for Ultrawideband and Low-Voltage Applications

This letter presents a low-voltage balanced amplifier for millimeter-wave radio systems. An ultrawideband of operation is demonstrated from 155 to 210 GHz, which corresponds to a 30% relative bandwidth. Over this band, the system provides 10-dB gain for a power consumption of only 16.8 mW. For the employed 0.8 V voltage supply, the large-signal characterizations demonstrated a maximum iP
_{1 dB}
of -17.1 dBm and oP
_{1 dB}
of -10.2 dBm. The measured input and output return losses are above 10 and 20 dB for the whole band. The described features are enabled by the balanced common-base architecture, the ad hoc designed multistub matching networks, and the employed high performance 450-GHz SiGe BiCMOS fabrication technology. The realized amplifier compares well against reported SiGe BiCMOS designs operating above 200 GHz by showing the widest demonstrated bandwidth as well as the lowest voltage supply and power consumption.